Film Phase 4 — Multiverse Opens (2024–2025)

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Name: Spider-Man: No Way Home
Released: 2021-12-17
Duration: 148 min
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau

"The Multiverse unleashed."

Released December 17, 2021 2h 28m ★ Essential

Peter Parker is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super-hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

Watch note

Peter asks Strange to make the world forget he's Spider-Man — the spell goes wrong and pulls in multiverse villains and both Tobey and Andrew's Spider-Men. Aunt May dies. All three Peters cure the villains. Strange wipes everyone's memory of Peter — he starts completely alone.

Why It Matters in the MCU

No Way Home is the most structurally ambitious Spider-Man film made to date, using multiverse mechanics not as a gimmick but as a mechanism to explore what the Spider-Man identity means across generations. The reunion moments between franchise iterations are earned rather than pandering because the film gives each returning character a complete emotional arc rather than a cameo. It commits to the hardest creative choice available to it: Peter Parker walks away with nothing — no mentor, no identity, no one who remembers him — which is exactly the right ending.

Where It Fits in the MCU

Spider-Man: No Way Home sits at position 96 of 133 in the MCU's story-chronological order, placing it within the Phase 4 — Multiverse Opens (2024–2025) era. It is rated Essential — must-watch for following the main MCU narrative. Watching in story-chronological order provides the most coherent character development experience — individual arcs build naturally toward the franchise's major crossover events, with each film's post-credits scenes carrying forward into what follows.